How to Get Started With HomeKit

HomeKit is Apple’s entry into the smart-home arena. Following in the footsteps of Google’s recently acquired Nest system (as well as Google’s seemingly forgotten Android @Home initiative), Apple now provides an SDK as well as certification for smart devices in a more contextually aware home.

Apple announced HomeKit back in June, during its annual WWDC conference. The system will allow users to seamlessly hook up smart devices via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. What will this look like in your home? Well, imagine everything from a toaster than can alert you when your bagel has popped up to a system that adjusts the lighting and turns on the television when you enter a room.

As with its HealthKit, the focal point of Apple's HomeKit initiative is a unifying protocol--standardization via a singular SDK--to act as the conduit for devices or gadgets to communicate with iOS. This goes along with the consistent theme we have seen in iOS 8 and OSX Yosemite: contextual awareness through technologies such as Continuity or handoff. Via HomeKit, smart devices know when you are in a room, when you are going to use something and when you are finished using something--and take action accordingly.